


and hide it (in you)

by soliari



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, College, Other, Post-Canon, adulthood is hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 15:21:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11854332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soliari/pseuds/soliari
Summary: Rei might be happy to sit in the dark and grow mold, or whatever it is vampires do when they give up, but Nazuna's not content to stand still, and he's not going to leave them behind. If they have complaints, they can make them in the sunshine.Three years after their roads diverge, Nazuna sees Rei Sakuma at a party, and it all devolves from there. As always, it's Rei's fault, if you try hard enough.





	and hide it (in you)

**Author's Note:**

> part one of three. updates will be a bit slow, probably only one chapter every two to three weeks, but i plan to be done before we hit november at the latest.
> 
> rated for implicated events, not explicit content. warnings will be added should they become necessary!
> 
> piece title from a purity ring song, chapter title from a santigold song.

It isn't until he's leaning against a wall in an unfamiliar apartment, nervously drumming his fingers on a cup of tequila sunrise that's way more tequila than sunrise, that Nazuna has a moment to wonder if skipping out of one party with only a couple of text messages from a classmate to vouch for the new one wasn't a fantastic idea. On one hand, he's nearly got vertigo from the throng of people filling the apartment he'd been let into by a roommate of someone he knows from the student union, and he's gotten hit on twice by guys who definitely didn't know he wasn't a girl, but - on the other, there's a lot less drink in this glass, and a flash of pink and a blond from just around a couple of guys drinking beers together tells him he's found the half of his ethics class that bothers going out to party. He ducks in after a deep breath, and, after a moment, escapes mostly unscathed, if intimately familiar with half a dozen peoples' elbows. He leans against the couch arm to interrupt Yume in the middle of her story about the cute convenience store clerk who looks like a model because they've all heard that twice each. (He hasn't had the heart to tell her Mako-chin's not exactly on the market just yet.) She swats at his knee before she pulls on his sweater, and he lets himself be pulled onto the couch, laughing into one of Kosuke's terrible jokes about dinosaurs.

He's lifting his glass up for a last long sip when he just barely spots an obnoxiously familiar dark head of hair in the other corner of the room. He almost sputters his drink all over the place, but manages to cover his mouth instead of being gross, waving off Kosuke's hand clapping against his back. Rei Sakuma? _Here?_ When had they even come back from - wherever they were? Kaoru-chin had said something about London, some kind of venue change to make recording the UNDEAD album easier. So why is he seeing them at a college party in Tokyo? He rubs his hand over his eyes in case he's seeing things, but then the tall dark-haired person in a pastel blouse turns, and he can see from the dark choker at their neck and the curve of their mouth as they laugh that he was right.

Shit.

He swirls the tiny bit of drink left around in the bottom of his cup, staring at it. He wants to say hi, but he doesn't want to make it a whole - thing. Nazuna is fairly anonymous these days, and being seen with Rei Sakuma is tabloid-worthy if nothing else is going on. Thankfully, though, Eichi Tenshoin announced her wedding like a week ago, so. The tabloids are probably busy. He hopes. After a last draw of breath, he downs the dregs of his drink, and straightens up. Waving off the questions he's getting, he rocks to his feet and scoots around a couple of girls to get to the kitchen. If he's doing this, he's gonna need another drink.

The cramped kitchen is a notch quieter than the rest of the apartment, and there's people around getting stuff out of the fridge, and stuff, but when Nazuna ferrets his way over to the tequila, he doesn't have to say excuse me more than once. He stares at the teensy bit of orange juice left in the carton, and sighs, reaching for the orange soda instead. It'll do. Someone from his English class pulls a face watching him pour it, but he smiles. "Good thing you don't have to drink it," he says, as he's passing by, and laughs as he turns his way back out of the kitchen and very nearly runs into someone's back.

"Wha--woah!" He holds his drink up so he's not spilling all over, but there's an arm at his waist and long fingers wrapped around his wrist by the time he realizes what's going on. He looks up, feeling a certain sense of foreboding, and... yep. Rei Sakuma is looking at him, eyebrows high with surprise but a smile curving their lips into a badly restrained line. "R-Rei-chin, lemme go," he manages, straightening back up, and feels his face go hot. "I mean, thanks," he says, a beat too late, and Rei chuckles, a familiar, warm sound.

"What a surprise to run into you here, little rabbit," they tease, as he sips from his drink.

"That's my line, innit? You're all... off in England, or whatever," he answers, brandishing his free hand to tap Rei's chest. "What're you doing here?"

They seem to deflate the tiniest bit. "Ritsu has a piano concert and wouldn't let me go to the afterparty," they answer, and Nazuna shakes his head. He'd have thought the two of them would have patched things up by now. (Then again, they did get to go to the concert, so maybe they _have_.)

"So you came to a college party," he prods, and they shrug.

"The night is for prowling," they answer, "and after some digging, a local friend mentioned a party. And why are _you_ here? Friends in your major? I hadn't thought this to be quite your scene." They've shuffled closer to continue the conversation, winding some hair at their ear around one finger.

"What's that supposed to mean," he asks, but continues. "I was at another party, but it wound up filled with underclassmen," he says, "and my study partner's friend is the host of this one."

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid my old ears didn't catch that," Rei says, leaning down and shuffling closer again. Are they doing that on purpose, Nazuna wonders, but he takes a step closer to cup his mouth with one hand.

He's a broadcasting major. If there's one thing he's confident in, it's his voice. So he lets Rei have it as he repeats himself, and Rei pats their ear, grimacing. He'd feel bad, but their other hand keeps brushing his fingers on his cup, so maybe not.

Rei leans back. "Do you mind going outside with me? It's rather warm."

"Outside where?"

"Ah, just the balcony," they say, and point out the back patio doors. He hadn't noticed them before, distracted as he's been, and he nods, letting Rei lead the way. People sort of melt out of their way, Rei's charisma or maybe their height making them hard to ignore. In comparison, Nazuna feels tinier than usual, but at least he doesn't have to duck under drunk guys gesturing with sloshing beer cans.

The air on the patio is almost bitingly cold in combination with a slight wind, and Nazuna shivers, huddling down a little. The balcony's not huge, so Nazuna slides between Rei and the wall for some kind of barrier. "Cold?" they ask, and arch their brows, looking down. He's blushing before he realizes they're staring at the sweater tied around his waist, not - anything else.

"Ah, there's a, uh, stain," he explains, untying the sleeves to show the red stain on his white jeans. "Somebody fell and got vodka cranberry all over my lap," he explains, but tugs the gray sweater on over his blue shirt with a bit of cup juggling.

Rei reaches down wordlessly and pulls the zipper together. They tug the pull up so slowly it's almost - indecent, or something. Which shouldn't be possible when he's getting _more_ covered up. Red-cheeked, he lifts his cup to take a sip, glancing sidelong to see Rei is staring at his face. "Wha-what," he asks, cheeks puffed up, and they laugh, letting the pull trail through their fingers.

"You're no longer a little rabbit, are you, Nito," they ask, and lean forward to put their elbows on the balcony's railing.

"Well, I'm a college student now, you know, it'd be weird if I was still a kid," he answers, "you're not a kid either, you know."

"Of course not. I'm positively _ancient_ ," they shoot back, and he rolls his eyes.

"Not _that_ old," he says. He works on his drink again. "What're you doing in London, anyway?"

They shift, the pointedly ambiguous tilt on their mouth faltering. "Breaking up, apparently," they say, and Nazuna swallows. "For good, this time."

"I'm sorry," Nazuna says, soft, and they shrug, their pale pink blouse slipping on their shoulder as they look at the ground below.

"UNDEAD was never meant to last forever," they say, and sound convinced as the brake lights of the traffic below paint red on their pale skin in waves. Nazuna remembers standing in that same place, once, knowing the certainty of ending, and reaches up slowly to tug Rei's shirt back over their shoulder. His hand finds their skin, and he frowns, scooting closer.

"You're freezing," he says, and they turn enough to look at him, still taller even at this angle. "Didn't you bring a coat, it's winter, Rei-chin, you shouldn't be outside."

Rei's long dark lashes flutter in a series of surprised blinks, and their mouth parts, closes, before they straighten up. "A gentleman ought to offer his coat, little rabbit, but then it might be too short on me, hmm?"

"Ah, shaddap and get inside," Nazuna answers, reaching for their wrist. He stops when they reach down for something - oh, it's. His cup. "What," he starts, but keep his hand steady on the plastic as they lift it to their red-painted mouth and sip from it, leaving a stain on the lip of the cup.

They wrinkle their nose. "Is that orange soda," they ask, and he pulls it out of their grip, the temperature in his face rising again.

"It's not for you, it's for me," he says, "you - drink thief! Go get a tomato juice and whiskey or whatever it is you drink!"

"That sounds foul, Nito," Rei drawls, as he opens the door for them. "And you may want to take your sweater off, or people will talk about what we did on the balcony."

Nazuna resists the urge to throw his cup at them, because they're right.

\---

Rustling around in his cabinets for a clean teacup isn't exactly how Nazuna had seen his morning going when he let someone he hadn't seen since high school graduation into his apartment. He'd blame it on the three tequila sunrises, but they'd been fading by the time Rei Sakuma's hand on his thigh really registered for what it was, thirty seconds before Nazuna grabbed them by the front of their blouse and tugged them into a kiss. He has absolutely no one to blame for this but himself.

Well, okay. Maybe not. Everything can be counted back to Rei Sakuma, if you work on it a little.

"You're sure you don't want anything to eat? I can make miso or something," he asks over his shoulder, looking at the person slumped gracelessly across his kitchen table. His kitchen table only has two chairs, both on one side because the whole thing is usually pushed up against the wall, and Rei's stolen the one that isn't blocked by the precariously piled mass of Nazuna's unsorted mail and returned homework, turning it to the side so they can be nominally pointed toward him. Their long legs stretch akimbo across his kitchen floor, their bony ankles peeking out under the dark skinny jeans they'd only just pulled back on, and one foot bounces against the table leg before they finally raise their head. Their hair sticks to their sleepy-looking face, tumbling over one shoulder in a loose knot they'd pulled off with only a bobby pin (since the other three were somewhere in Nazuna's sheets, or so he presumes--), and they don't look any less like they hate time for existing than they had the few times they dragged themself to homeroom.

"I couldn't stomach it," they say, before their head drifts back down to lay against their bicep. "Just black coffee will be fine."

"If you say so," he says, dubious, and turns his head back toward the cabinet. "Ah-ha," he declares, pulling a plain yellow mug with the logo of the radio station where he'd done his internship plastered across the front and, after a moment, a thermos, one he barely remembers getting in a gift exchange one year and doesn't ever use, out of the cabinet to hold aloft. He's glad he didn't have to climb up on the counter, for once. He only got three hours of sleep, he doesn't want to risk shattering a cup. Or asking for help. He sets them both down next to his usual cup, pale blue with the Rab*its logo, and shifts to flick on his coffee maker. He leaves it to brew, wandering across the kitchen toward Rei. He lays his palm across their shoulder as he rounds the table, leaning over it and pulling the pile of papers together with one hand so he can move them. Move them where, is the question, but he stops with his fingers spread across the little mound because Rei's chin has turned and their eyes, hooded low with sleep, nearly glow in the blinds-filtered light of his kitchen. They smile, barely visible around their bicep, and he reaches out to tuck a lock of hair behind their ear.

"I'll be right back," he says, before he breaks off to gather the whole damn stack into his arms. His bedroom is the only door off of the kitchen - and if he has to look at a pile like this every day on his dresser, he's more likely to actually... sort it. Some of this stuff's been in the pile since the semester started, and he just celebrated finishing _finals_. (He's itching to do it now, actually, but he's got a guest.) He has to go up on tiptoe to slide the pile onto the dresser, eyebrows furrowed as he tries to nudge the pile in between the lamp and jewelry box. As he's finally getting things settled, he notices a piece of mail start to work its way off the top of the pile, and sighs - only to squawk with surprise when a long pale hand snags it from midair.

"Careful," Rei teases, laying the broad envelope safely on top of the pile, and Nazuna turns to look at them, jolting at the sudden touch of their cold fingers at his jaw.

"Wha--"

They lift their hand just as he reaches up to clap his hand over the suddenly cold spot, and he hunkers down a notch, red in the face. "Surprised me," he mumbles, and scowls at their indulgent laugh.

"I was... distracted by your hair," they say, after a moment, turning their hand toward him again, and he lets his hand fall. He wrinkles his nose at the temperature of their fingers, but his cheek fits into their palm as well we he remembers. (Remembers too well, actually, they're supposed to be _leaving_ in an hour--)

"You said that last night," he says, and they shrug. 

"I know," they admit, "I just didn't think you'd ever cut it so short. It suits you."

"I got tired of being called 'miss'," he informs them, and pulls another face. "Not that it worked that well."

They snort. "Not even like this?"

It's definitely the most boyish cut he's had since he was about ten, heavy on his forehead and short on the sides, but... he shrugs, himself. "I get told boys like long hair better all the time," he says, soft.

That makes them raise their eyebrows. "Do they, now? I'd never noticed."

"We do," he answers, and reaches up to tug on the hair trailing from their bun. "Now c'mon, I can hear the coffee maker beeping."

Their vague protest is swallowed by his hands on their hips, turning them around by hand, and his weight against their back as he pushes them out of the bedroom. They stop at the counter and look over their shoulder, mischief in their eyes as they sag back on top of him. "Rei-chin," he complains, looping his arms around their middle. "I gotta pour the coffee," he says, voice muffled by the fabric of their shirt in his mouth.

"Do you take one sugar, or two?" they ask, infuriatingly pleasant.

"Two, and some creamer - hey, wait! Rei-chin! I'm the host!"

"I can pour coffee perfectly well, thank you," they say, "fetch the creamer?"

He gives up, flapping his fingers against their hip as a token protest, and moves to peel open his fridge. "Hazelnut, or vanilla," he wonders, aloud, and turns to look at Rei when he hears them making a disgusted sort of sound. "You don't have to drink it!"

"I might have to taste it anyway," they grumble, and he grabs the hazelnut out of spite, then shuts the refrigerator with more force than it really needs.

"Now you're _definitely_ not," he declares, elbowing in next to them to snag his cup, but his lips twitch when they stoop down enough to look him in the eye, and he laughs into their mouth on his.

\--

They're pulling on their coat in his entryway when he gathers his courage. "Hey," he calls, leaning out of the kitchen, and waves the thermos in the air. "To-go cup?"

They blink at him, hands still on their lapels. "I couldn't take it," they venture, and he makes a show of rolling his eyes.

"Then just return it, it's fine," he says, swallowing nerves, and waits.

They don't say anything for a moment, buttoning their coatfront with careful fingers. "I'll need your number," they say, looking up, and he smiles.

"I guess," he agrees, fishing in his pajama pants for his phone, and after he unlocks the screen, he tosses it in a loose arc. They juggle it (he winces as it tips in their palms--) before settling it in the cage of their fingers, and he leaves them to key in their number or text themself or something, busying himself making sure the thermos cap is on all the way before he pokes his head back out to find them looming in the hallway right outside the kitchen. "Oh my god," he manages, yelping, and can hear his heart jackhammer in his ears as he shoves the travel mug at them one handed. "Why?!" he complains.

"I can't figure out how to save this," Rei admits, a little sheepish, and Nazuna groans. He reaches out to take his proffered phone, and they swap until he can save their name, with bat emojis next to _Rei_. Rei leans down to look at it, and laughs. "Show me how," they say, and he opens a message with a press of his thumb. It's just the coffee cup, but after he leans over and shows them how to add him back, they take a moment to flick through emoji, settling on a rabbit (predictable) and a radio microphone (less so).

When he asks, they look triumphant. "Because you're so _loud_ , little rabbit," they say, and he _knew_ he shouldn't have asked.

"Is your manager outside yet," he asks, to cut off whatever they were going to embarrass him with yet, and they hum, sipping at their mug and backing through their messages with their other hand.

"She's turning the corner. I should be off, before she decides to come searching. I can't promise your apartment would survive," they deadpan, and pause, coffee and phone in the air.

Nazuna steps into the space they've left him and smooths down a wrinkle in the ribbon at their throat. They swallow, and he goes up on tiptoe to meet them halfway, just once, before he's rocking back on his heels and waving them away. "Text me later, we should meet up for dinner," he says, firm. They nod, eyes somewhere else, and then they're gone, one way or another, before they even step into their boots and leave his door open by a handswidth.

Typical, he thinks, as he locks up after them.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm too old to debate my trans headcanons and i'm happy to turn on moderated comments if i have to but i really don't want to so please... let me live... but i do eat comments for breakfast lunch and dinner bc they are delicious so i do encourage comments!!! even if it's just so u can give me a character to cameo or whatever.
> 
> you're welcome to say hi or tell me to stop being a lazy shithead @ maeotias on twitter/tumblr, too.


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